Project duration: 
2011 - 2013

The project aims to analyse the links between living conditions and their perceptions in Czech, Hungarian, Polish and Slovak households. After the trends in aggregate indicators of socio-economic development are identified, questions will be raised about the degree and character of congruence among them. Using various data sources on the household level, inequality in and factors of objective well-being will be contrasted with perceived satisfaction by country and period since 1990. Comparative EU surveys will then be analysed to investigate the changing links since 2005 between material well-being and making ends meet both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. Two opposing explanations will be put forth: 1. the objective state is not perceived appropriately, and we should seek the reasons of that; 2. objective indicators are insufficient to explain living conditions in a wider sense. The project will conclude by establishing the interactions between objective and subjective indicators that need to be observed by research and considered by policies. 

measurement of well-being;household income;subjective indicators;satisfaction; happiness 

Topics: 
wages and incomes
standard of living
Grant agency: 
Czech Science Foundation (GACR)

Publikace vydané v rámci projektu (celkem 10, zobrazeno 1 - 10)

Večerník, Jiří

The potential provided by survey data for studying simultaneous changes in earnings disparities, inequality of household income, and the connections between them has thus far been underexploited. This paper presents various data on four Central and East European (CEE) countries, as well as some data on Austria and Germany for the sake of comparison.

Téma:
wages and incomes, social inequalities, sociological data
Oddělení:
Economic and Religious Studies
Typ publikace:
Article with impact factor
Večerník, Jiří

The article drafts problems on the interface of the objective and subjective indicators. In the first section, multi-dimensional approaches are tackled and in the second, concepts of happiness and satisfaction are overviewed. The relationship between economic growth and human happiness is described next. In the fourth section, data on reported happiness in the Czech Republic, ready for analysis and comparison, are described.

Téma:
economics, methodology
Oddělení:
Economic and Religious Studies
Typ publikace:
Article with impact factor
Mysíková, Martina

This paper aims to quantify the basic structure of gender wage gaps in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia, using the EU-SILC 2008 dataset. The structure of the gender wage gap is analyzed based on the Heckman selection model and Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition. The fi ndings are to a great extent similar for the Czech and Slovak Republics. The observed gender wage gap is relatively high in these two countries, compared to Hungary and Poland.

Téma:
gender, wages and incomes
Oddělení:
Economic and Religious Studies
Typ publikace:
Article with impact factor
Mysíková, Martina

The European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) set of surveys are an important source of comparative statistical data. EU-SILC provides data on income, living conditions, poverty and social exclusion, material deprivation: topics of growing interest to scholars in Europe and elsewhere. EU-SILC surveys are fielded in 29 European countries and coordinated by Eurostat.

Téma:
methodology, wages and incomes
Oddělení:
Economic and Religious Studies
Typ publikace:
Peer-reviewed journal article
Mysíková, Martina, Večerník, Jiří

This study focuses on comparison of factors of job satisfaction within Europe. The rare comparative papers on this subject commonly compare Western Europe (WE) and Eastern Europe (EE) by pooling data on the two regions. By contrast, this analysis takes into account dis/similarities within each of the two regions. We use an ordered probit regression model based on European Social Survey 2010 and test the homogeneity of the two WE and EE regions.

Téma:
economics, work
Oddělení:
Economic and Religious Studies
Typ publikace:
Article with impact factor
Zdeněk R. Nešpor
Téma:
religion and religiosity
Oddělení:
Economic and Religious Studies
Typ publikace:
Article with impact factor
Večerník, Jiří, Mysíková, Martina

This article contributes to the debate about the impact of the transition to subjective well-being. After reviewing the relevant literature the authors draw on the surveys of the European Values Study between 1991 and 2008 to describe the trends in life satisfaction in 13 ‘Western’ and 11 ‘Eastern’ countries. The analysis finds that life satisfaction levels in transition countries have come to approach those in the West: the ‘rather unhappy’ 1990s were followed by the ‘rather happy’ 2000s.

Téma:
EU
Oddělení:
Economic and Religious Studies
Typ publikace:
Working paper
Nešpor, Zdeněk R.
Téma:
history of sociology
Oddělení:
Economic and Religious Studies
Typ publikace:
Peer-reviewed journal article
Večerník, Jiří

The article documents the development of life satisfaction in four transitional Central European countries since 1991, in comparison with Germany and Austria. After presentation of data sources and the overview of the literature regarding the effect of transition on life satisfaction, surveys of European Values Study 1991, 1999 and 2008 are analysed together with macroeconomic data.

Téma:
standard of living
Oddělení:
Economic and Religious Studies
Typ publikace:
Article with impact factor
Fialová, Kamila, Štika, Pavel

The article assesses well-being in the Czech Republic compared to other Visegrad countries (Slovakia, Hungary, Poland) and neighbouring Germany and Austria. By employing various approaches designed by several international organisations it takes an aggregate perspective to assess both the current well-being and its sustainability into the future. All the employed indicators that relate to current well-being evaluate the well-being in the Czech Republic as moderate among the OECD countries.

Téma:
standard of living
Oddělení:
Economic and Religious Studies
Typ publikace:
Peer-reviewed journal article